


Born to Die

by fewlmewn (Shouriko)



Series: D&D Original Stories [5]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Asexual Character, Asperger Syndrome, Bullying, Implied Mind Control, Magic-Users, Necromancy, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Queerplatonic Relationships, Virgin Sacrifice, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 08:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17546219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shouriko/pseuds/fewlmewn
Summary: What would Mara think of you now, Lara? What of your choices, your dreams, the expectations? What now? Think of all that's been and reconsider. Perhaps something can still be done to fix past mistakes.It doesn't have to end now.





	Born to Die

_Lara’s first memory is of a simple doll. She sat on the dusty floor of her parents’ farmhouse, near the fork where the Twin Eels creeks merge into a thunderous river. The hearth was crackling and warming her freckled face. It feels like a lifetime ago. It is._

The doll is made of twine and straw, tightly bound to shape her arms, legs and bulbous, featureless face. Resin harvested from the nearby stone pine thicket had been used to glue frazzled bunches of dry hay to the sides of the doll’s head, giving her misshapen pigtails. A piece of rough spun cloth, undoubtedly cut from a grain sack, had been dyed red, and tied around the doll’s disproportioned torso with a piece of wire. Lara had toyed with the doll without reprieve, undressing her and putting the little scrap of fabric around her form so much that the dye had started rubbing off on her little nubby fingers. Some blades of straw across the doll’s chest had started breaking apart, and the wire had long rusted. It was perhaps a toy unfit to be handled by such a young child, but no one had enough coin to buy a proper doll, or even replace it. They barely scraped by – but Lara didn’t know yet. Couldn’t know, when all she had was a warm house and a toy and that was enough for her, even on those nights she fell asleep with a rumbling stomach.

The memory of the little doll – Mara, she’d named her, as if she’d been a little sister she could look after – ends with Lara placing it on the floor tiles, lined just so with the grooves like in the middle of a cross. Perfectly centered, Gods know what for.

Lara admires her best friend, how pretty she looks in her good outfit, the red dress worn especially to go to the temple, the dress for the Goddess. Something she could only dream of wearing. Sitting cross-legged and facing Mara, Lara smiles and nods, happy with her placement and how the pigtails are so perfectly brushed – you almost cannot tell they’re splitting at the ends, she worked so hard to make them look good.

But then, within the space of a moment, something bright jumps from the fire and lands on Mara. An ember, as small as one of Lara’s fingernails, bores a hole into the red dress, making it shine white and orange for a split second. It’s beautiful, so beautiful Lara cannot notice that Mara is quickly catching on fire. The straw, too old and dry to survive for more than a moment, quickly turns to ashes and sinks into the grooves between the floor tiles.

Lara burns a finger trying to hold up the piece of wire, the only survivor of the whole ordeal, and without thinking she casts the scalding metal across the room. Lost between the cobwebs and the rat droppings. The ash mingles with dust and dirt, and even an afternoon spent combing the floor to gather what’s left of Mara proves to be fruitless. There shall be no funeral service.

 

Images of uniforms swim across her mind. Jewel tones, bright and vibrant. Despite the golden scrolling across her chest reading “ _Ehlatis_ ”, her plain white robes pale in comparison with the Prefect’s scarlet shawl. One day it shall be hers, if not by orthodox means, then through deceit. No, she could never steal from a senior student. She cares about the code and making sure she doesn’t upset anybody more than she wants the red coat for herself, anyways. She would die if they’d thrown her out. There’s no point in risking it all for a piece of cloth anyway.

Olda giggles and points to a figure dressed in pitch black robes across the courtyard. Yes, the man is handsome, but isn’t he a bit too old for us to ogle? “You silly,” She says. “Look at the book he’s carrying!” He holds a massive tome, larger than any she’d had to study so far. As big as some of those kept in the library behind fences and wards, and just as old. How could he be carrying such a precious relic across the academy, in the light of day?

“Reckon there’s some kind of forbidden magic in there?” She keeps giggling. Olda braids her hair the best, the same way her mom used to do and with perfect motions that Lara herself can never achieve; if it wasn’t for that, Olda’s constant chattering and tittering would’ve certainly ensured that Lara kept her due distance from the air-headed girl. Yet, compared to other students, she wasn’t so bad after all. At least Olda didn’t pull her braids when she walked past, nor she grimaced at her, pretending Lara smelled like a dead raven when she knew – she had made sure – she didn’t stink at all.

The man disappears inside a side building, and the faint shimmer of something arcane seals the door behind him. With hands kinder than she probably deserves, Olda combs her wavy hair and braids the strands anew.

 

The day she finally reaches the end of her education is a momentous one. Countless hours poring over ancient texts and tomes detailing how quickly flesh decays in different weather conditions have all been worth it for the highest honor of all. Wand in one hand, quill in the other, she signs in golden ink on a ledger as thick as her head, split in the middle and open on a bare page.

 _Laraffa Evinora Ehlatis_.

No one has ever called her that. She was always just Lara among her peers, and Miss Ehlatis with the teachers, despite her pleas not to use a name that wasn’t hers. Awant had all but sold her to the academy, ripping her from her home preaching charity, only to discard her. For him, the academy had been little more than an orphanage where he could leave his adoptive daughter for the better part of the year – out of sight. Mom had smiled when the kind, wealthy elf had passed by the village looking for promising pupils to groom into powerful arcanists. To Lara’s parents it must’ve felt like a fever dream. For them, it was a chance for a brighter future; for her, it was a chance to leave the dingy hovel behind in exchange for marble halls and ironed uniforms. A dream of someplace tidy and neat and clean and perfect, more than it was the possibility of becoming someone, some day. And yet, here she was. She was someone. She had a full name. When she enrolled in the academy, she’d begged Awant to let her keep her mother’s name. She didn’t want her roots to be drowned out by _his_ pretentious legacy. A small mercy. Evinora.

Magic coursed from the page, to the quill, to her hand and into her arm. She was bound to the book. No matter where she went, she could always be traced back to the academy in Imidrith, and all would know just how powerful and deserving of praise and respect she was.

The presiding Archmage smiled at her with a face full of wrinkles that she couldn’t help but find unpleasant, and with arthritis-ridden hands, he’d placed a silk robe across her shoulders.

Silver.

 

Patrolling the darkened halls of the Necropolis was more and less than she’d imagined it to be, all at once. Decades later, she can still remember first crossing the threshold into the domain of Death in the remote citadel perched west of Imidrith. Long gone are the days when she would look forward to a free day to roam the city with Olda trailing right behind, wondering and gawking at store windows and dreaming of expensive gowns and a collection of different-sized potions and philters to display on their very own laboratory.

Now, what kept Lara company was the all-encompassing silence and the rhythmic bubbling coming from some of the more restless vessels. The 7-foot tall crystal jars shine beautifully in the low arcane torchlight, casting the corridors in an eerie but calming, blue-hued mist.

She roams from row to row, inspecting each container and marking down the progress of those within it in her grimoire, relishing in how perfectly timed and paced her steps are along the shiny obsidian-black tiles, and coquettishly proud of her ruby red headscarf. The only scarlet the Hall of Crystals has ever seen and would ever see. Besides, without Olda, there’s no point in keeping her hair loose.

 

Years pass, it feels like a century has gone by. Clad in white and sitting on a cold cot within a secluded crypt, Lara wonders what Olda must be up to. She’s probably dead. Half-elves lead shorter lives, don’t they? Last she’d heard, Olda had gotten married to an enchanter from the Empire. Is there such a thing as “enchanters” in the Empire? She didn’t know enough to dispute the fact, and now was probably too late to find Olda and call her out on the lie. She scoffs. Her only living friend is probably dead too, now.

She wonders what Mara is up to. Where has her little sister gone? Her best friend, the only one who ever cared about Lara at all. The companion of countless days, her partner in crime. Did she lead a different life from hers or did she end up at the Reaper’s Altar, too?

Quietly, knowing it’s the last thing she’ll do, Lara marches from the darkened chamber into an equally dimly-lit chapel. Rough and uneven stone is all around her, the acolytes’ hoods are frayed and unkempt. Her brow twitches instinctively.

She had known the moment she had destroyed the twenty-first crystal urn that her career had come to an end. She didn’t even know what had gotten into her. Ruining the work of a lifetime to serve a different God with the promise of peace hardly seemed like a bargain now.

A priest stepped close to her and lit a ravenous bonfire in a man-sized hollow along the floor. A pyre, how ironic. Just like Mara.

The warmth reminds her of home, of sunbathing after swimming in the Twin Eels, of mom braiding her hair, of conjured flames in the safety of the academy, of the first kiss she’d never had but she’d imagined so many times.

“Take it off,” says the priest, pointing to her headscarf. She must be pure, untainted.

Red is for Blood. Black is for Death. White is for Fire and Rebirth.

 _There will be no red today_ , is what he means.

 _There will be no sacrifice_ , then, Lara seems to reply, gathering fire within her hands – for Mara, if a few centuries too late.

**Author's Note:**

> Another crazy one-shot churned out literally between 2 and 4AM. If you liked it, tell me what you think!


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